In the By Daniel S. Levine with Kathy Tyre

The news that four Western agencies had made the list of invitees to the $30-35-million IBM PC review was a benchmark for the West - a sign that, after years known as cre

Not that California has failed to attract national accounts before. For some time now businesses from GM’s Saturn at Hal Riney & Partners/S.F. to Eveready at Chiat/Day in Venice, Calif., have traveled West to find ad agencies. But IBM is another breed of account, a member of that blue chip brigade of businesses for which West means Riverside Drive in New York City. ‘It’s certainly the type of client that one has always associated with the East Coast,’ said Jeffrey Goodby, co-chairman of Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein.
San Francisco-based Goodby, along with Riney and Woolward & Partners and Stein Robaire Helm in L.A. are among the more than 50 shops believed to have been invited to participate in the review. They have yet to make the first cut, but there’s good reason to believe at least some will.
For one thing, IBM competitors such as Apple (at BBDO Los Angeles) and Dell Computer (at Goldberg Moser O’Neill/S.F.) have made dramatic inroads into IBM’s markets based on a peculiarly Western brand of advertising: In the case of Apple, an emotional appeal to buyers and for Dell, a smart-aleck personality that matched the hackers’ attitude.
These shops also have a solid grounding in high-tech work. Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein has handled Adobe Systems, Librex Computer Systems and Radius.
Riney’s past clients include Dell Computers and the now defunct Momenta Corp. Woolward & Partners is ad agency to Logitech, Oracle and Eo, Inc.
Stein Robaire Helm recently won Knowledge Adventure, a maker of educational software, in a review conducted by Arthur Einstein, who is consulting on the IBM PC review. SRH president Greg Helm worked on Apple Computer and Intel while at Chiat/Day. And the shop’s executive vp/director of client services, Caroline Beck, previously worked on Apple and Microsoft.
Copyright Adweek L.P. (1993)